My colleagate years were filled with the refrain to search out a Vocation. An idea that often felt full of pressure to do something big and meaningful. It left people pleasing, perfectionist me with a fear that I would fail to find meaningful work and somehow let down both the world and myself.
I had internalized the Frederich Beuchner quote about “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” as something I needed to discover in order for my career to have purpose. As a student with seemingly infinite paths ahead of me that pressure was crippling. Every decision of what class to take or what major to pursue felt like saying “no” to a thousand ways I could see myself pursuing my Vocation in the future.
Halfway through college I spent a weekend sobbing with some strange mix of happiness and regret because I finally recognized one of the ways I felt fulfilled and excited to contribute to the world: teaching. But I realized it was likely too late to pivot my degree and become credentialed in the field without adding years onto my own education. And even if I did, I loved the problem solving that comes with hands on coding and I would have missed that if I were to switch fields entirely.
That revelation felt like a blow and a blessing. It opened my eyes to an opportunity, but it wasn’t something I was going to be able to use right away to pay the bills. Instead I took what felt like a boring job in comparison to many classmates that were moving on to big names like Google and Epic, or even other local businesses with better brand recognition than my employer. It felt like I was compromising on my calling. Selling out even.
Thanks to the support of many key influences in my life, personal and professional, I quickly realized this was not the case.
Certainly there are sometimes when a Vocation can be both a source of joy and a source of income, but our calling is often so much more complex than a simple transaction. It’s not about the big, impressive things, though those certainly still matter, our calling is so often in the small ways we influence our direct community.
It’s in the ripples we spread to those around us. The way we make others feel included and excited to contribute to the conversation. The way we care for and about the world around us. The way we treat ourselves, even.
Our Vocation, our Calling as humans is to make the world a better place. Sometimes that’s in big ways like saving a life, sometimes it’s in small ways like taking out the trash. It’s something irreplaceable and uniquely our own that brings us all a tiny bit closer to the way the world should be.
In the moments (so many lately) where I feel my small bit of influence is too small to be doing the world any good, I try to remember how important it is to be doing the little things. Adding my drops of kindness to the ocean of others around the world.